As the world observes the 50th anniversary of the JFK assassination, hosts Peter Phillips and Mickey Huff speak with author and former diplomat Peter Dale Scott. Scott has written extensively about modern US history, on topics from JFK and the CIA to drug smuggling and the September 11 attacks. In this interview, Scott applies his idea of "deep politics" to the JFK assassination and other landmark events in US history.

In this Special Program for Veteran's Day Colonel Ann Wright speaks on "Whistle Blowers in the Age of the Surveillance State," October, 2013 produced by WRZD and sponsored by Chicago Area Peace Action Colonel Wright spent 13 years on active duty with the U.S. Army before beginning a distinguished 16 year career with the U.S. Foreign service. In 2003, she resigned her diplomatic post in protest on the eve of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, one of only three State Department officials to have done so. She has since become a campaigner for peace and justice, opposing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and raising awareness of sexual assaults with in the U.S. armed forces. She has traveled on the Japanese Peace boat and with the flotilla to break the siege of Gaza.

Host Kathleen Stephenson speaks with Tami Dean and Hossein Rojhantalab about their recent trip to Iran. They spent seven months traveling around Hossein’s country of origin—Iran. They set out to introduce Tami to Hossein’s family and friends back home, and then cover as much territory as possible to get a wide look at a country that Americans know little about.

Bayard Rustin is perhaps one of the most understated leaders of the Civil Rights Movement. He helped with the formation of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) in 1942, which was conceived as a pacifist organization based on the writings of Henry David Thoreau, and modeled after Mahatma Ghandi’s non-violent resistance against British rule in India. Bayard Rustin would devote his life to the non violent pursuit of equal rights for all.

10 am - Air Cascadia features folk troubadour and troublemaker David Rovics

10:15 am - 11:30 am - Thomas Linzey, founder of the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund, which works to build sustainable communities by assisting people to assert their right to local self-government and the rights of nature. He spoke at the Ballot Initiative Campaign Kickoff Event to Ban Growing of GMOs in Multnomah County on September at the 21st at the Immaculate Heart Church in Portland.

11:30 - 12 - LIVE IN STUDIO: Arun Gupta - Independent journalist and regular contributor to AlterNet, Truthout and the Guardian, Gupta is a co-founder of the Occupied Wall Street Journal and the Indypendent.

THE POLITICS OF AUSTERITY
Governments around the world have characterized spending as reckless wastefulness that has made the economy worse. They have advanced a policy of draconian budget cuts--austerity--to solve the financial crisis.
But the global turn to austerity, or the policy of reducing domestic wages and prices to restore competitiveness and balance the budget, is harmful to both governments and individuals. In this special program we hear from a variety of scholars about the dangers of austerity and the need to expand growth and opportunity with stimulus programs.

What is the right human population? The current seven billion? More? Less? Zero? Alan Weisman is the author of the best-selling The World Without Us, an examination of what would happen to the natural and built environments if people suddenly disappeared. Now, in his new book Countdown: Our Last, Best Hope For A Future On Earth?, he explains why population has grown so fast after growing slowly for thousands of years, then dares to consider the possibility that fewer humans might make for a better world, and covers recent developments in population control.

Betty Reardon's peace education work is noted for its integration of human rights principles and feminist perspectives on global issues into its substance and methodology. Reardon is the Founding Director Emeritus of the Peace Education Center at Teachers College Columbia University and the International Institutes on Peace Education, a global consortium for continuing education on issues of peace. Reardon participated in the plenary discusion "Three Powerful Women," during the 2008 conference of the Peace and Justice Studies Association and the Peace and Conflict Studies Consortium.

September 17th, 2008 is the second anniversary of the death of James Chasse Junior, Jim Jim, an early fixture in the Portland Punk Scene, a schizophrenic man living independently in Downtown Portland, and the victim of a brutal and fatal police beating.Two years ago James Chasse was attacked and beaten to death by Multnomah County Sheriff deputy Bret Burton, Portland Police officer Christopher Humphreys and Portland Police Sargent Kyle Nice. on NW 13th and Everett before a dozen eyewitnesses. Chasse was not suspected of a crime, he had not committed a crime, and had no criminal record. The officers beat him, kicked him, tasered him repeatedly, and broke 17 ribs and his shoulder.

Chasse was sent by paramedics to jail, where the Jail nurses refused to admit him. He died en route to a hospital in the back seat of a police car driven by the same officers who had earlier beaten him.

The Multnomah County medical examiner ruled that Chasse died of blunt-force trauma to the chest, but declared the death “accidental.” A grand jury later cleared the officers of criminal wrongdoing. The officers involved are all back on duty.

This interview is with Jason Renault of the Mental Health Associaton of Portland, and film director Brian Linstrom , about James Chasse, and the film project about his life, called Alien Boy.It also includes excerpts from the Public Memorial Service held for Chasse in October, 2006.

The film’s title comes from a song written about Chasse in 1979 by his friend, Greg Sage, lead singer of the seminal Portland punk band, the Wipers. He was also the subject of the song Nothing to Fear by Portland’s first all female punk band, the Neo Boys.

Pu-uhonua is a consistent voice for the just restoration of the inherent rights to self determination and self governanace of native Hawaiians. Mr. Kanahele is active in the movement to restore and advance the rights of indigenous peoples of the Americans and throughout the world. For the past decade, he has served on the Board of Directors of the International Indian Treaty Council. His work fosters alternative, compassionate appropriate and alternative solutions to the political,economic, social, and cultural issues and concerns faced by Native Hawaiians.

Kayse Jama spoke during the 2008 conference of the Peace and Justice Studies Association and the Peace and Conflict Studies Consortium. He participated in the plenary session "Localizing and Colorizing Peace and Justice." Jama recently organized for the Western States Center under a New Voices Fellowship. He lives in Portland, a refugee from Somalia and helped found the Western States Center.

Jo Ann Bowman spoke during the 2008 conference of the Peace and Justice Studies Association and the Peace and Conflict Studies Consortium. She participated in the plenary session, "Localizing and Colorizing Peace and Justice." Bowman is the Executive Director of Oregon Action, President of Coalition for a Livable Future, a Public Affairs Program radio host, and a former member of the Oregon State House of Representatives. She is President of Bowman Consulting SErvices and is also a Social Justice Training Professional.

Col. Ann Wright is the co-author of "Dissent:Voices of Conscience". A retired 29-year veteran of the Army and Army Reserves, she resigned from the Department of State ion March 19, 2003 in opposition to the Iraq war. Wright was a diplomat in Nicaragua, Grenada, Somalia, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Sierra Leone, MIcronesia, Afghanistan and Mongolia.

Wright participated in the plenary discusion "Three Powerful Women," of the 2008 conference of the Peace and Justice Studies Association, and the Peace and Conflict Studies Consortium.

Stephen Soldz is a psychoanalyst, psychologist and faculty member at the Boston Graduate School of Psychoanalysis. He is a founder of the Coalition for an Ethical Psychlogy and organization leading the struggle to change the American Psychological Association policy on participation in abusive interrorgations. He discusses with host Linda Olson-Osterlund the role psychologists have played in the use of torture by the U.S. Military and Intelligence agencies and the current struggle inside the American Psychological Association to end this role.

You can visit his blog Psyche, Science, and Society and at the web site Psychoanalysts for Peace and Justice

Eric Lichtblau is the Justice Department beat writer for the New York Times newspaper. He and his partner in writing, Jim Risen were the recipients of the 2006 Pullitzer Prize fpr national reporting for their story that revealed the secret, warrantless wiretapping program of the National Security Agency. He talks about the Bush Administrations secret actions to rewrite or circumvent Civil Liberty protections most Americans consider the bedrock of our freedom.

His compelling and important book is Bush's Law; The Remaking of American Justice